P.A. HAAXMAN

Biography

P.A. HAAXMAN
1814 Delft - 1887 Delft

Pieter Alardus Haaxman (Delft, 12 November 1814 – Delft, 21 December 1887) was a Dutch painter, watercolourist and draughtsman working in the Romantic tradition. The son of Cornelis Haaxman, an official in the municipal tax office, and Maria Bolland, he was admitted at the age of sixteen to the Delft city drawing school, where he studied under Cornelis Ouboter van der Grient. He subsequently trained as a painter with Cornelis Kruseman, whose refined manner and meticulous rendering of materials left a lasting mark on his work.

Haaxman remained tied to Delft throughout his life. Like his own teacher, he became a drawing master at the city drawing school and later taught at the Hogereburgerschool and the Burgeravondschool. He served as secretary of the drawing society Tandem fit surculus arbor and took an active part in the town's artistic life; his pupils included Adolf Mangold. His output encompasses genre scenes, beach views, portraits, figure pieces and historical subjects, which were admired by connoisseurs and commanded good prices. Characteristic is his pursuit of the decisive, mildly sentimental moment, as in his painting of the 1861 flood in the Bommelerwaard. Works by Haaxman are held in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Museum Stadskasteel Zaltbommel, among others. He came from an artistic family, being the father of the art critic Pieter Anne Haaxman and grandfather of the art historian Jeanne de Loos-Haaxman.